Famous for their rack toys Azrak Hamway produced an insane amount of items based on the world's most merchandisable Superhero, Batman. No doubt pumped by the reruns of the 1966 television series and his success on Saturday morning, AHI managed to pump out an incredible amount of affordable toys in a short time. (Images courtesy of Bill Frost)
AHI Batman Toys feature in our upcoming book Rack Toys: Cheap, Crazed Playthings, click here for info.
This plane by AHI was a staple and saw many incarnations including Spider-Man, the Hulk (!) and later SGT Rock.
This carded Batmobile shows AHI's wilder side in terms of packaging design, check out that Joker.
This super fast Batmobile has really simple and classic looking packaging, a big picture of Batman, what more do you need?
A different Batmobile with a much different card.
A poor man's version of the Corgi set.
Everyone had to see this one coming the AHI parachuting Batman.
Parachuting Robin, a real toughie to find MOC (courtesy of Will Frost)
MOC Parachuting Penguin comes courtesy of Bill Frost, I love the design on the figure, it's been wonderfully simplified.
Batman pull string Bat Cycle, I love the little vinyl cape.
The Penguin made money on the side doing motor cycle tricks at county fairs..
Batcycle on an elaborate display card.
A higher priced item, a remote controlled bat boat. By that late seventies the packaging got a bit more reserved..
An early boxed remote controlled batmobile.
An later boxed remote controlled batmobile.
A boxed Batman Zoom Cycle, whcih makes more sense than the Planet of the Apes versions, AHI also sold.
I don't know how these toys constitute a "play set" but the card art is lovely.
Spin Batman until he barfs!.
This Batrocket is indicative of later AHI packaging design.
Time to take an indepth look at one of the more premium products made by Azrak Hamway, this time it's the Batman Road Race set. Normally, AHI stuck to low cost rack toys and released the higer priced items through their Remco brand but occasionally they'd do a higher price point item like this road race set and well, do a pretty good job of it.
As you can see the big star of this set are the cars, how cute are these? It doesn't hurt that the Joker's car looks like Wonderbug.
The track is generic but AHI threw in a lot of cardboard goodies to keep the Batman vibe going, I especially like the Joker card.
This may have been 1975 but the influence from the TV series is still very obvious, it's a little cardboard Bronson canyon!
Superheroes a big staple for the AHI rack toy program, these inexpensive parachute men were very popular. Other heroes such as Robin, Captain America, Penguin and Joker were also made. (Scan courtesy of Mike Jimenez).
 
Two AHI Parachuting Superman courtesy of Steve Leach, Steve believes the one on the left to be a knockoff, although it looks better than the licensed AHI model which is obviously just a reworked Batman, complete with gloves and a fringed cape.
These Bat vehicles by AHI offered a lower cost alternative to the diecast Corgi products available at the time.
It's amazing how many vehicles Spider-Man has in the toy world.
These fly away copters for Spider-man and Batman were popular items.
Zing Wings were Frisbees using all of AHI's top selling licensed characters.
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